Romani People

Chronology of Coverage

Apr. 9, 2015

Spanish groups representing Roma people launch campaign to remove reference to Roma as swindlers in definitive Spanish dictionary published by Spain's Royal Language Academy. MORE

Jan. 6, 2015

Local prosecutors and human rights ombudsman near Champlan, France, will undertake antidiscrimination inquiry into Champlan Mayor Christian Leclerc, who is accused of refusing to allow burial of 2-month-old Roma infant in municipal cemetery; Leclerc denies incident. MORE

Jun. 26, 2014

Brutal beating of Roma youth in immigrant suburb north of Paris, highlights tensions in France's economic underclass. MORE

Jun. 18, 2014

French authorities say teenage Roma boy is in a coma in a Paris hospital after being abducted from a shantytown and beaten by as many as a dozen people; say assault was apparent retaliation for boy's alleged burglary attempt in nearby housing project. MORE

Jan. 15, 2014

French rights groups report that country evicted 20,000 migrant Roma squatters in 2013, doubling number of evictions in 2012. MORE

Nov. 28, 2013

British Prime Min David Cameron says that he will restrict state benefits for European Union migrants, including a ban on housing subsidies for new arrivals and sharp limits on unemployment compensation; comes in response to political pressure and public fears about influx of Romanians and Bulgarians in 2014. MORE

Nov. 28, 2013

Established French mushroom picking companies, disappointed by low yields, are claiming that foreign workers--Roma in particular--are to blame; issue highlights frustrations of some French as a borderless Europe opens once exclusively French domains to economic competitors, and reveals darker undercurrents of hostility and discrimination within the culture. MORE

Oct. 26, 2013

Members of the Roma ethnic group, reeling from reports that several blond children were taken from their Roma parents on suspicion they were abducted, are worried that their own children will be taken away on the false notion that all Roma have dark features; kidnapping accusations, which have since been proven wrong by DNA tests, are feeding Europe's long-time negative stereotypes that Roma steal people's children. MORE

Oct. 25, 2013

Irish authorities promise to review circumstances under which two blond, blue-eyed Roma children were removed from their families in different parts of the country, only to be returned when DNA testing confirmed their parentage. MORE

Oct. 23, 2013

Greek prosecutor Efterpi Koutzamani orders emergency nationwide investigation into birth certificates issued since 2007 after a Roma couple is jailed on accusations of abducting a child found at a camp in central Greece; appears that families may have been fraudulently securing benefits by declaring their births in several regions of the country. MORE

Oct. 22, 2013

Roma couple is jailed in connection with what Greek authorities say is the abduction of a child who was found during a police raid on an encampment; couple is identified by the police as Christos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, and they insist they adopted the child from a Bulgarian woman. MORE

Oct. 21, 2013

Dzemila Dibrani, Roma woman whose family was deported from France in case that touched off government investigation, is beaten and briefly hospitalized in Kosovo; police say Dibrani and husband Resat were accosted by another Roma couple. MORE

Oct. 20, 2013

French Pres Francois Hollande says deportation of 15-year-old Roma girl Leonarda Dibranigi was legal but that police should not have taken her from school bus to join her family as they were sent back to Kosovo; says that police will be prohibited from entering school premises to pull out children in such circumstances. MORE

Oct. 20, 2013

News analysis; case against group of Roma in France who were convicted of forcing children to steal highlights an increasingly rancorous debate across Europe about the nomadic people; policy makers are raising the thorny question of whether the Roma can ever integrate into Western Europe, after centuries of persecution and living on the fringes of society. MORE

Oct. 18, 2013

Students and teachers in France protest country's shocking expulsion of 19-year-old Armenian student Khatchik Kachatryan and 15-year-old Kosovar girl Leonarda Dibrani; call for resignation of Interior Min Manuel Valls, who has been a strong proponent in particular of deporting Roma; racial politics surrounding Roma minority in France shadows expulsion of Dibrani, who is also Roma. MORE

Oct. 18, 2013

Editorial expresses concern that some European Union members are finding it easier to stigmatize and expel Romani people than to provide them with the eduction, housing and employment they seek; notes Roma, who have historically become scapegoats in times of economic crisis, are being especially discriminated against in France, where Interior Min Manuel Valls has said most Roma cannot be integrated into French society and must be expelled. MORE

Aug. 7, 2013

Hungarian court sends four neo-Nazis to prison for killing Roma families in spree of racist violence in 2008 and 2009 that shocked country and led to accusations that police failed to protect the historically persecuted minority. MORE

Jun. 4, 2013

Many Roma people, also known as Gypsies, are still living in shantytowns in France despite Pres Francois Hollande's campaign promises to rehouse and integrate them; coming change in January 2014, in which Romanians and Bulgarians will have same right to travel and work in member countries, has made Roma even less welcome in France, as new fears emerge that they will take citizens' jobs and benefit from country's lavish social welfare system. MORE

May. 10, 2013

Eastern Slovakia’s elementary schools are a microcosm of one of Europe’s biggest challenges: how to keep old demons of ethnic scapegoating at bay and somehow bring Roma, its most disadvantaged and fastest growing minority, into the mainstream; Roma, also known as Gypsies, comprise 10 percent of Slovakia's population and outpace all other groups in unemployment, illiteracy and other indicators of deprivation. MORE

Dec. 11, 2012

Genomic study in journal Current Biology appears to confirm that Roma people of Europe, often called Gypsies, originated from group that left northwestern India 1,500 years ago. MORE

Oct. 25, 2012

Germany pays tribute to hundreds of thousands of Romani killed in Holocaust, opening Memorial for the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered in National Socialism, long-awaited place of remembrance for minority still plagued by discrimination. MORE

Sep. 29, 2012

Mob in France sets fire to encampment of 35 foreign Roma in Marseille neighborhood. MORE

Aug. 31, 2012

Stains Journal; ethnic Roma in France have been disappointed in Pres Francois Hollande's failure to better integrate the group into French society, saying that they were led to believe by his campaign promises that he would be different than his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy. MORE

Aug. 10, 2012

French Pres Francois Hollande dismantles Roma encampments and rounds up the illegal travelers' group for expatriation; officials say decision to evict is based on sanitary concerns; charter plan flies 240 Roma, including children, back to Bucharest, Romania from Lyon, France. MORE

Jul. 12, 2012

Gypsy look is an increasingly prevalent fashion trend, the spirited outgrowth of a popular fascination with Romany culture. MORE

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Every year, members of the Kalaidzhi, a group of seminomadic Roma, gather in a field outside the town of Stara Zagora to conduct the complex negotiations on a bride price that traditionally lead to marriage. However, support for marriage traditions is waning.